There are a number of processes for introducing primary amino groups into polymers. Two of these shall be mentioned at this point:                Reduction of the nitro groups of nitrated polymers with reducing agents suitable for this purpose, for example, with sodium dithionite (Naik, H. A.; Parsons, T. W.: Chemical Modification of Polyarylene Ether/Sulphone Polymers: Preparation and Properties of Materials Aminated on the Main Chain, Polymer 32, 140 (1991)); and        Introduction of the azide group in lithiated polymers, for example, lithiated polysulfone (Guiver, M. D.; Robertson, G. P.: Chemical Modification of Polysulfones: A Facile Method of Preparing Azide Derivatives From Lithiated Polysulfone Intermediates, Macromolecules 28, 294–301 (1995)) and subsequent reduction of the azide group with sodium borohydride to give the amino group (Guiver, M. D.; Robertson, G. P.; Foley, S.: Chemical Modification of Polysulfones II: An Efficient Method for Introducing Primary Amine Groups onto the Aromatic Chain, Macromolecules 28, 7612–7621 (1995)).        
Tertiary amino groups can be introduced into polymers by reacting lithiated polymers with aromatic ketones, aldehydes or carboxylic esters which contain tertiary amino groups (Kerres, J.; Ullrich, A.; H˜ring, Th.:Modifikation von Engineeringpolymeren mit N-basischen Gruppen und mit Ionenaustauschergruppen in der Seitenkette [Modification of Engineering Polymers with N-basic Groups and with Ion Exchanger Groups in the Side Chaini, German Patent Application 198 365 14.4 dated Aug. 12, 1998)
From the prior art, no reaction is known with which secondary amino groups can be introduced into a polymer in a targeted manner, nor is a reaction known from the prior art with which it is possible to produce a polymer with secondary amino groups from a polymer with primary amino groups, and to produce a polymer with tertiary amino groups from said polymer with secondary amino groups.
If primary amines are alkylated by means of known processes, tertiary amine and quaternary ammonium salts are also formed in addition to secondary amine. Mixtures of low molecular weight primary, secondary and tertiary amines can be separated from one another, for example, by means of distillation. If, however, the primary amino groups of a polymer are alkylated by means of customary processes, following the reaction, primary, secondary and tertiary amino groups may be present simultaneously on a macromolecule. Thus, using customary alkylating processes, it is not possible to obtain secondary or tertiary polymeric amines from primary polymeric amines in a targeted manner. This technical problem is solved by this invention.